Friday

My lovely little sister Leanne has come down for a few days to spend some time with me and the boys. Today I had to go into the next town to us to get birthday presents for my best friend and my god daughter. I figured while we was there we may as well make a day of it. They have a very nice park in Trowbridge which has a crazy golf course, tennis courts, a large childrens play area, some medows at the back of the park, and to top it off they had a fun fair there today also. We went to catch the bus but when we got there we realised the buses were on sunday hours and only every 2 hours. I said we would have to cancel and do it another day when Brad mentioned going by train. Good old Brad I had not even thought of taking the train instead. So we took a walk down to the train station I was gob smacked when it cost just £6.60 for 2 adults and 3 children returns on the bus it would have cost £15.50. The ticket attendant informed me that if there is a group of 4 or more then children travel free and adults are half price. I asked if this was some sort of easter promotion but he assures me this is an every day offer. I dont know if it just covers local travel or if it covers national travel also I was not about to grill him on the issue incase he changed his mind lol. When we got to Trowbridge we had a look in the shops and got the presents I needed to get. We then went and got our picnic items. The price of our picnic was as follows: Sausage rolls 73p, Juice 90p, crisps 58p, chocolate 60p, cakes 80p a total cost of £3.61 not bad for the 5 of us im sure you will agree. We also had a lot left over which we brought home and put in the cupboards for another time. Then we went to the park the boys were extremely excited and wanted to do the fair first. We had heard there was going to be a fair last week so the boys decided to save some of their pocket money to go on some of the rides. They had £3 each which was enough for 2 rides each and aunty Leanne paid for them to go on an extra ride each. So in total they got 3 rides each none of which I paid for. After the fair I treated us all to a 18 hole round of crazy golf this cost just £7 for all 5 of us and it took us a good 45mins to get round the course. The boys absolutely loved it. We then went and played in the playground before returning home from our day of fun. We were all pretty tired when we got home as there was a lot of walking involved in our day so the boys all had a fairly early night great fun was had by all. In total our day cost me a total of £17.21 not bad for the 5 of us and as a special treat because aunty Leanne was down. Tomorrow we are going out for lunch to the hungry horse as a special birthday treat from me and the boys to my best friend and her daughter. I have a couple of vouchers to keep costs down and most of us will be travelling in her car again keeping travel costs down. Here are some pictures from today

  

As you can see from all the pictures we have had a pretty awsome day.
Much Love
Claire
xx xx xx

Thursday

Today I had a lovely very cheap day out with my youngest son Brandon. I was looking for activities to do with the children over the easter holidays that were free or very cheap. I did not have a clue where to look so started at my local library and local information centre. I found a whole host of activities most of which are free some of them require a small token payment but are very cheap. Here is a list of all the activities I have in my diary:
Monday 2nd april = Easter card making at Trowbridge museum (FREE)
Tuesday 3rd april = Easter basket making at Trowbridge museum (FREE)
Thursday 5th april = Easter crafts at our local library (FREE)
Wednesday 11th april = Jumble sale at a local church with free face painting for the kids (FREE)
Thursday 12th april = Tshirt making at Trowbridge museum with magic and balloon making in the shoping centre afterwards (£1.50)
Saturday 14th april = Easter egg hunt at our local childrens centre (75p)

We will be having picnics and going for long country walks on the days that we dont have an activity the cost for this will be bus/train fares plus the small cost of a picnic.

Today we went to the library to do some easter crafts which was great fun a photographer from the local paper was also there and asked if they could take Brandons picture to go in the paper. Im looking forward to seeing how it turned out as he had a big smile holding up the easter basket he had made. After our crafts we got some new books and dvd's from the library and set off for our picnic in the park the total cost of our picnic was as follows: Sausage rolls 30p, Juice 45p, Cakes 40p, Crisps 20p a total of £1.35. Whilst Brandon was playing I did a little work on the knitted blanket I am making for my bed for this winter when I have finished mine I intend to do one for each of the boys also. After we finished playing we took a nice walk home and snuggled up on the sofa to watch our free dvd's from the library. Here are some pictures from our day out.

Hope everyone is enjoying the easter holidays as much as us
Much Love
Claire
xx xx xx
 

Saturdays post

My we have been busy and with all the busyness I did not get a chance to write about what we did on saturday so here it is.

We went into Trowbridge for a picnic in the park we also had a look in the shops and Ben and I had our hair cut. I have been debating getting my hair cut for quite a few months it was a toss up between having it all chopped off or having dreads put in. After speaking to my friend Kel who has had dreads in the past I decided against it as they take a lot of maintaining and would look very messy for quite some time before they formed properly. Having made the decision to go for the chop I had been looking round for a good price on a wash and cut the prices I got ranged between £25-£35 and I just could not justifiy spending that sort of money on a haircut so I made the decision to go to my local college and act as a model for a hairdressing student this would have cost me £12. However when we was in town I saw a sign in a barbers window offering ladies wash and cuts for £13 so decided to go for it and this is what my hair looks like now.

I will now spend the next 2 years growing it again before paying for another haircut lol. The boys had some easter money to spend they had a total of £22 each however they do not get to spend all of this. I have a policy with the children that I feel teaches them the importance of saving and giving any money the boys get they have to put 20% in one jar to donate to a charity of their choice once a year, 30% in another jar to save up, and the remaining 50% they are allowed to spend on anything they choose. Ben spent his money on a wii game that he wanted and Brandon brought an electronis light up thomas book and a small thomas easter egg. Bradley was not with us as he was at respite care so he will get to spend his money another day. We got some drinks from poundland and some warm sausage rolls and doughnuts from greggs a total of £4.92 for our picnic and off we went to the park for some fun.

Hope everyone else had as good a weekend as we did.
Much Love
Claire
xx xx xx

Getting new clothes for next to nothing

I have just brought quite a few new summer clothes for the boys the total cost including delivery was £3.50 all these clothes are brand new from tesco I will show you what I got and at the bottom I will explain how I done this.

Bradley

                 

            

Ben 

                                                   

Brandon

                        

The total book price for these items was £57.45. Tesco offer free delivery on purchases over £50 so £3.95 was taken off leaving a total of £53.50. I also had a promotional code for £10 off when you spend over £40 which left a total of £43.50. I had been saving up my clubcard vouchers and had £20 worth so I traded these in for a £40 clothing voucher some time ago and had not yet used the voucher (Tesco double the amount of your clubcard vouchers when you trade them in for specific items) leaving a total of £3.50 to pay. So I was able to purchase 15 brand new items of clothing for the bargain price of £3.50 this is definately a way I will be buying clothes again.

The code for £10 off when you spend £40 or more is ENJOY12 this is valid untill 15th april 2012

The place to visit to trade in your clubcard vouchers can be found here (please note that tesco only run the double vouchers at certain times throughout the year im sure if you were to contact tesco they would be able to give you an idea of when this promotion will next be running)http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/clubcard/

Much Love

Claire

xx xx xx

Friday

Spring is definatly here I took some lovely pictures of spring today.

                                                        Ladybird Ladybird fly away home

You cant quite make them out but they are a little patch of forget me knots and the green plant next to it emerges into the most beutiful orange flower not sure what its called though I think it may be a lilly or an orchid of some kind.

Some pictures of the allotments that back onto my garden

This is my tiny little patch as you can see it needs a little TLC lol. In the past I have tried growing a few veggies here but have never had much success so this year I think im just going to plant a few flowers

Ben had a competition at school today of who could find the largest and who could find the smallest potatoe. This was the smallest we could find but it was not small enough as someone else won.

My beutiful apron arrived from Love Loo Loo dont forget if you like what you see you can view more of Laura's items here http://www.etsy.com/shop/LoveLooLooxox

I had lots of eggs in the fridge that needed using up and a few potatoes on the verge of turning so can you guess what we had for dinner ..............

Egg and homemade chips of course nom nom nom lol

A few pictures of Brandon at our lunch time picnic in the park

Some goodies from the charity shop they had a sale on childrens clothing any 4 items for £1 I managed to get a next jacket for Brandon, a winter coat for Ben, a tshirt for Brandon, a pair of jeans for Brad, 3 long sleeved tshirts for Brad, and a long sleeved tshirt for Ben total cost £2

  

Our dvd and book rentals for the week. Because of my menieres disease I have a special account at the library that allows me to rent dvd's free of charge and we dont have to worry about return dates on any of the items we borrow either.

Hope everyone else had a good Friday.
Much Love
Claire
xx xx xx